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CIAO DATE: 06/05
Volume 17, Number 2, June 2005
Contributors
Symposium on regional integration by Stephanie Lawson
Regional integration, development and social change in the Asia–Pacific: implications for human security and state responsibility by Stephanie Lawson
Regional integration is generally seen as having positive security outcomes with respect to traditional inter–state relations as well as economic growth. However, there are also negative social and economic effects, which the broader concept of human security is useful in focusing attention on. The main aim of the article is to highlight some of the negative human security outcomes produced by the dynamic processes that have underscored regionalization in the Asia–Pacific in recent years. A further aim is to question what this means in terms of state responsibility. Given that states are ‘social protection providers’ of last resort, this is an important issue. This function has been largely ignored in neoliberal agendas that have sought to promote market reforms while actively undermining the role and capacity of the state. The state has also had a bad press from other quarters, including the human rights/human security lobby. While agreeing with the general point of the refrain that ‘human rights are not state rights’, I suggest that those who might welcome a weakening of the state per se in the cause of human security should think twice.
From Santiago to Lima: The organization of American States and political integration in the Americas after the cold war by Arturo Santa-cruz
This article looks at the pattern of political integration that has been taking place in the Americas since the 1990s. It is argued that the ideological convergence in the hemisphere has contributed to the emergence of a distinct regional normative structure to support democracy. The article begins with a brief summary of my theoretical baselines, constructivism and neoliberal institutionalism, and subsequently discusses the adoption of the 1991 Santiago Commitment to Democracy and Resolution 1080, briefly reviewing the four instances in which the new instrument was applied. I then consider the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter, and look at the Venezuelan situation since the 2002 unsuccessful coup. I conclude by evaluating this 12-year-long process from my two theoretical baselines.
China's regional activism: Leadership, leverage, and protection by Rosemary Foot
Why has China increased its attention to the Asia–Pacific region, especially since the late 1990s, and does it have a coherent short– and longer–term vision for the region as a whole? This article investigates these questions and notes the relationship between Beijing's regional activism and its global concerns, particularly as they relate to the United States. China now plays more of a leadership role in the region, is working hard to undermine the argument that its rise is a matter to be feared on the part of its neighbours, and if necessary hopes to be able to leverage improved relations in the Asia–Pacific in the event of a serious downturn in its relations with Washington.
From pre-emption to negotiation? The failure of the Iraq-as-deterrent nuclear non-proliferation model by Andrew Newman
This article critically examines one of the most important corollaries of the Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq: the expectation that the war would deter other proliferators from pursuing their purported nuclear ambitions. Although Iraq likely provided the final impetus for Libya to renounce its nuclear program, it is argued that in the cases of Iran and North Korea, regime change did not act as a deterrent. Indeed, there is evidence to suggest that the war heightened the perception that nuclear weapons are effective guarantors of security in these countries. The apparent failure of the Iraq-as-deterrent model and the extreme difficulties inherent in conducting effective pre-emptive strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran and North Korea have forced the US to embrace more multilateral and diplomatic approaches to counter-proliferation.
Be alarmed? Australia's anti-terrorism kit and the politics of security by Matt Mcdonald
In early 2003 the Australian government distributed an anti-terrorism kit to all Australian residences, aimed (according to the government) at indicating what was being done to protect Australians from terrorism and suggesting what Australians themselves could do to prevent or respond to a terrorist attack. I argue here that the kit portrayed the threat of terrorism as imminent and ubiquitous, and positioned militaristic responses to this threat as the most effective means of responding to it. Such representations may be viewed as attempts to justify anti-terror legislation and intervention in Iraq, and contribute to the legitimacy of the government more generally. I conclude by pointing to the choices inherent in the depiction of security and terrorism in this way, and to immanent possibilities for more alternative (and more normatively progressive) security discourses to emerge.
Iraq: Strategy's burnt offering by Anthony Burke
Whatever its value, the international debate over the war in Iraq has failed to question its underpinnings in modern strategic reason; specifically, the 20th-century development of Clausewitz's view that limited war is a rational, controllable means to a political end. This essay traces the development of this technological ‘enframing’ system of strategic reason from the scientific philosophy of Newton, Bacon and Descartes to the modernist thinking of Kissinger and US Persian Gulf policy from 1980 to the present. It argues that the containment and eventual invasion of Iraq thwarted a linear translation of means into ends, and questions the ethical implications of a perspective that makes territory, technology and human beings into mere tools for disposal and use.
Book Reviews